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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

House Bill Targets Steroid Precursors

A House bill to ban over-the-counter sales of steroid precursors, which act like steroids in the human body, passed by a vote of 408-3 on Thursday.

The overwhelming approval of the bill is the result of political and public pressure to eliminate the use of performance-enhancing drugs by baseball players and other athletes.

Along with banning over-the-counter sales of steroid precursors, this bill would increase penalties for anyone who makes or distributes anabolic steroids at or near playing fields, stadiums and other sports sites, the Associated Press reported.

"The bill will go a long way to ensure that our nation's athletes and children will not be exposed to these dangerous products," said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas).

The U.S. Senate is considering similar legislation.

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Marathon Waits for Boston Patients

Among people living in 15 major American cities, Boston patients have the longest waits to see medical specialists, according to a survey released this week.

The survey, by Texas-based consulting firm Merritt, Hawkins & Associates, found that new patients in Boston have to wait an average of 50 days to see a dermatologist, 45 days to see an obstetrician-gynecologist, and 37 days to get an appointment with a cardiologist.

For those specialists, these were the longest waits of the 15 cities, the Boston Globe reported.

Boston had the second longest wait -- 24 days -- to see an orthopedic surgeon. The longest wait -- 43 days -- was in Los Angeles.

While Boston had the longest overall waits for specialists, patients in Washington, D.C. had the shortest overall waits -- eight to 15 days -- of the cities in the survey.

The reasons for the long waits in Boston aren't clear. Low fees, high malpractice premiums, and the cost of living means that doctors are leaving Massachusetts or refusing to practice in the state, according to the Massachusetts Medical Society.

One expert noted that many Boston doctors work in academic medical centers, where they teach medical students and do research. That leaves less time for looking after patients, the Globe reported.

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Antibiotics Protect People From Meningitis Patients

Anybody who comes into contact with a meningitis patient should take antibiotics because it can reduce their risk of catching the disease by 89 percent, say doctors with the UK's Health Protection Agency.

Most people exposed to meningitis patients are already given antibiotics. But there hasn't been clear proof that the antibiotics protect them from meningitis, BBC News Online reported.

The Health Protection Agency doctors reviewed results from five studies and concluded that there's strong evidence to support the practice of giving antibiotics to people in contact with meningitis patients.

In addition, the doctors said their research findings suggest that these antibiotics should be taken by meningitis patients when they're discharged from the hospital. At least 3 percent of discharged patients still carry the virulent meningococcal strain, the doctors found.

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Obesity in Kids More Widespread Than Thought

A new survey from Arkansas suggests that the obesity problem among children may be worse than experts have believed.

The Associated Press reports that 40 percent of schoolchildren there are overweight, and 22 percent are obese.

The wire service said that it is the first comprehensive look at the weight of children because Arkansas passed a law mandating such a survey. "I think we'll find as we go along that Arkansas is not that much more obese than other parts of the country," the AP quotes Dr. Carden Johnson, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, as saying.

Previous national studies had found that 30 percent of children were overweight, and that 15 percent were considered obese.

Gov. Michael Huckabee, who has lost 100 pounds in the last year, said he hopes the survey is a wake-up call to Arkansas residents.

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Seniors Baffled by Medicare Drug Card

Seniors and the disabled are confused by the new Medicare drug discount card, and that the puzzlement is souring them on the initiative, a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds.

On a scale of 0-to-100 (with 100 being the most favorable), seniors rated their perceptions at 31, HealthDay reports. That score is "well below the halfway point, so the inclination is to be negative -- and the fact that the system is confusing is one of the reasons people give it a negative score," said Geoff Garin, a partner with Peter D. Hart Research Associates, which conducted part of the research. "There is a view [that the government has created a Rube] Goldberg contraption."

"Beneficiaries are badly confused at this early stage about this law, and that means that it will take a major effort to educate and inform if the law is to be successful and if seniors and disabled people are to make the best choices for themselves and for their families," HealthDay quotes Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, as saying.

Democratic opponents of the new card, who would prefer buying cheaper drugs from Canada, told Newsday that only 500,000 of the 2.7 million enrollees signed up voluntarily; the rest were automatically signed up through insurance programs connected to Medicare.

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Hoarders Exhibit Unusual Brain Activity

People who collect things and hold on to them for a long time may suffer from an unusual form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that's not treatable with standard therapies.

The BBC reports that the researchers behind a new study believe hoarders may have been treated inappropriately.

Hoarding has long been thought to be a form of OCD, a condition in which people have lingering fears that force them to repeat tasks (like washing their hands) repeatedly and unnecessarily.

The new study, appearing in the American Journal of Psychiatry, finds that hoarders exhibit different brain activity patterns. "Hoarding and saving compulsions long associated with OCD may spring from unique, previously unrecognized neurobiological malfunctions that standard treatments do not necessarily address," the BBC quotes Dr Sanjaya Saxena of UCLA as saying. "In addition, the results emphasize the need to rethink how we categorize psychiatric disorders."

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